Hoyer: Stop Playing Partisan Games with the Debt

WASHINGTON, DC - House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) spoke on the House Floor in opposition to a Republican amendment to H.R. 807, the “Pay China First" Act.Below are excerpts and a link to the video.

“The sad thing is that this is not a serious response. This is an irresponsible response. This is a response that, as I said earlier, says that we'll pay some people first but we won't pay all our debts. The richest country on the face of the Earth, the most creditworthy nation on the face of the Earth – we won't pay our debts. There is a simple way to stop this. Stop demagoguing one another. And I want to tell the gentleman, as he knows: Democrats have demagogued this issue when we had Republican presidents. And Republicans have demagogued it when we had Democratic presidents. We all know that we've incurred debts and we're going to pay them. That's all this is, it's very simple. We're either going to pay our debts or we're not."

“This amendment is – I won't characterize it as harshly as I feel about it. We have to stop playing games. We have to be serious. We need to come together and adopt a big plan that's balanced, that can pass and will put this country on a fiscally sustainable path, and in the process we ought to pay our bills because we incurred them. We incurred them honestly for objectives that this House, this Senate, and the President of the United States signed for.”